Category Archives: blog

Summary Reports
With Canvaser SOS, you can leverage your assessment fields to see how close you are to reaching your goals. You can select up to three sorting and grouping fields and control what checkbox fields you want to create totals for (for example select a signed card checkbox field.) You can also set up a threshold percent so you see how close you are to reaching your goal.

As more unions adopt Canvasser SOS, we are proud to announce our Silver Partner Status with Salesforce. This growing partnership with Salesforce will help us to continue to extend our resources helping unions make the transition to Canvasser SOS and the Force.com platform.

LAS VEGAS (KSNV News3LV) — Support staff workers for the Clark County School District have voted to switch union representation.

More than 11,000 workers voted overwhelmingly to join the Teamsters Union, the Employee-Management Relations Board announced Saturday.

Nearly 82 percent of those voting approved to join Teamsters Local 14. The staffers had been represented by the Education Support Employees Association.

The unit is made up of a wide range of support workers, including clerical, custodial, maintenance, school bus and cafeteria workers who maintain and operate America’s fifth-largest school district.

“This is a historic day,” said Jim Hoffa, Teamsters General President. “These determined school workers stood strong to win this free and fair election. Today, their hard work has finally paid off. On behalf of the 1.4 million Teamster members, I want to congratulate them on joining the growing movement of public service workers nationwide seeking Teamster power.”

Support staff already voted overwhelmingly in favor of Local 14 representation, in a vote tabulated Feb. 3 this year and in 2006. Despite democratically voting to join the Teamsters, both elections required a supermajority rule (50-percent-plus-1 of all eligible voters) for Local 14 to obtain certification. Following the election in February, however, hundreds of support staff took their case to the EMRB to win a fair election.

“This is what democracy looks like,” said Carlos Pinto, a head custodian at CCSD who spoke on behalf of the unit following the vote count. “We, the workers, brought change. It’s hard to express how meaningful this victory is for us. We couldn’t be prouder.”

Speaking on behalf of Local 14, Secretary-Treasurer Larry Griffith thanked the workers for their dedication over the years, crediting the worker-led organizing committee for bringing change to CCSD.

“Workers at CCSD have done what many have called the impossible,” Griffith said. “We will continue to stand in solidarity and unity with everyone at CCSD as we address a decades-worth of concerns.”

“Tracking and communicating with a statewide membership can be challenging. In partnering with SOS we now have comprehensive real-life member data right at our finger tips. Union reps and organizers can login remotely using smart phones to turf, task, record, and update member activity. With each phase we continue to build. As we prepare for negotiations with the University, SOS is helping us to strengthen our membership.”

A study published in the Harvard Business Review (December 2013) summarizes research that shows that if somebody rejects a request to fill out a survey, the same person is likely to surprise you by agreeing to your second request to drop a letter off in the mail. The conclusion is that the squeaky wheel does get the grease. Compliance is shown to be underestimated no matter how big the ask is. If you start big, and get a no, (door in the face) then come back with a smaller request, you are more likely to get a yes. Other studies have shown if you start small (foot in the door) and you get a yes, people will continue to say yes. Either way, be persistent!

So the question to you is, knowing this information, how may you change the way you organize, gain support and build leadership capacity?

SOS will be presenting at Dreamforce, Salesforce’s annual convention with over 100,000 registered participants. We will be show casing our Canvasser SOS app and how we helped one union organize 10,000 members in two weeks! The workshop we will be presenting at is titled, “Top Employee Facing Apps delivered on Salesforce1”. Contact us for more information. Hope to see you there.

SOS is pleased to announce the release of Canvasser SOS. Now you can create packets, maps, surveys and visit your targeted contacts all from your phone! For more information, fill out our contact page.